


the bracelets that bind us—family is a kind of friendship too

by OceanMyth



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang (Avatar) Is A Good Parent, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship Bracelets, Kya inherited Aang's awkwardness, Kya is a dork, Kya is oblivious, aang's jewelry making past, father-daughter bonding, in that order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26652715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanMyth/pseuds/OceanMyth
Summary: Aang teaches Kya to make little woven bracelets, like the necklace he made for Katara in season one. Essentially just father-daughter bonding with a side of friendship bracelets.
Relationships: Aang & Bumi II, Aang & Kya II (Avatar), Aang & Tenzin (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), Kya II (Avatar)/Original Female Character(s) (brief onesided), Kya/Izumi (brief onesided)
Comments: 81
Kudos: 160





	1. cutting the threads

Kya stares up at the clouds, and _wishes_ . Her stomach curls in on itself, and she feels— _sour_. Bitter. It’s not a feeling she likes, but she can’t exactly wish it away either. Which sucks. But whatever, it doesn’t really matter, does it? 

The day is grey and overcast, and Kya is sure that it’s gonna start raining in a few hours— she can feel it beneath her skin, even though the clouds don’t look dark and heavy enough. 

She’s not sure if she wants to drag herself off the roof to go inside though, even if she’s going to be soaking wet when the sky finally decides to open up— and isn’t that an irony? The _sky_ opening up for _her_. 

If she goes in, Mom will probably be mad, and concerned, and scold, and ask her about how she’s feeling. Maybe she’ll be okay with that, because it’s how Mom shows she cares. Mom might also take her out for waterbending practice in the rain, and the two of them can go down to the cove together and play in the push and pull of the waves. 

But Bumi will probably make fun of her for being alone all day if he’s home, and Tenzin will follow her and Mom out for practice, claiming that he wants to learn waterbending techniques to use in his airbending, and he’ll hog the time that is just for _her_ and _Mom_ , and Bumi and Tenzin are the reason she’s out here in the first place. 

She doesn’t want to see their _stupid_ faces today.

Decisions, decisions. Should she get up and go inside, and face her brothers? Or stay outside, and let herself get drenched? Kya hums, and blows at a piece of hair that had fluttered into her mouth contemplatively. Thinking. But before she gets the chance to choose for herself, the universe makes the decision for her.

“Hey Prunes! Whatcha doing out here by yourself? Are you alright?” 

Kya peaks over the ledge of the rooftop she’s sitting on and— yup, her Dad is standing there, yellow and orange robes standing out against the green of the foliage behind him. He sounds upbeat and happy. Overall, he stands out from the sad grey day like a drop of sunlight caught in amber. She squints down at him, then rolls onto her back and looks back up at the dark sky.

It’s too late to pretend she’s not there though, so she drags herself up from where she’d been sprawled out flat across the tiles, rolls her eyes, and swings her legs over the side of the roof.

“I’m not doing _anything,_ and I’m fine,” she mutters, once she’s upright. 

She can’t meet Dad’s eyes. 

His hands are tucked casually into the folds of his robes, and he’s kinda slouched, relaxed. Even the way he stands seems too happy and upbeat for how she’s feeling. He probably just came home— he’d taken Bumi with him to the council meeting again after picking him up from school— which means that he and Tenzin are gonna train together soon, since they missed their normal afternoon session. 

She frowns, and kicks at the air sullenly. Dad sighs, and then uses his airbending to jump up next to her. Her frown gets bigger.

“That’s cheating,” Kya says, and she’s still not looking at him. It’s the most pointed not-looking she can do, and she doesn’t know why he hasn’t taken the hint _and just left_ yet.

“You didn’t answer my question, Kya,” he says, and leans back and stares at the sky. She scowls, and kicks her legs harder, letting her feet thump against the eaves. She hates when he’s so serene and calm about things, and she wishes he’d responded to her accusation of cheating, let her avoid his question. She really doesn’t want to talk right now. But Dad’s gonna make her, isn’t he?

The silence stretches on for a second.

Then Kya snaps.

“Why do _you care_ , Dad!? Shouldn’t you be training with Tenzin right now? Why do you care where I am or how I’m feeling— just— Leave me alone!” she yells, and she regrets it a little bit afterwards, but she came out here to be _alone,_ and she didn’t ask for him to show up here. 

Everything is quiet for a moment, and when she sneaks a look over at Dad, his face is still and his eyes are closed, and his lips are tight and she feels more guilty than she did before she looked. He looks sad. He hasn’t moved at all since she yelled at him. She looks down at her hands, and laces them together, fidgeting a bit— she doesn’t know what to do.

Finally, he sighs.

“Of course I care, Kya-” she snorts, guilt forgotten again, as all of the sour bitterness that has been sitting in her stomach all day comes roaring back.

“Yeah right—I bet Mom asked you to come look for me!” Kya folds her arms and tucks her knees up to her chest, turning away from Dad as she does. He doesn’t try to stop her— she hears the way his breathing hitches as she hunches in, and she knows that he’s barely holding himself back from sweeping her into a big hug. A part of her wishes that he would, instead of trying to give her the space she asked for.

“No, she didn’t. Your mother was worried about you— you’ve been gone all day, of course she’s been worried—I was worried too, when I came home and you were gone! But it was _my_ decision to come out here and check on you, and mine alone. Not hers.” Kya hugs her knees tighter to her chest.

“Yeah? Stop _lying_ and prove it,” she spits, and she doesn’t know why she’s being so hurtful— Dad has never lied to her or Bumi or Tenzin before— but clinging to the sourness in her stomach is all that she’s gonna get out of this conversation. She knows it, just like she knows that her brothers would be insufferable if she decided to go back inside.

Dad doesn’t say anything, and Kya feels triumphant— the sourness has doubled, but she’s been proven right, and that has to count for something. Then he sighs.

  
  
“Ask your mother, since you don’t seem to believe me. Maybe you’ll listen to her,” Kya glances back over her shoulder at him, and the look on his face makes her stomach drop out from under her. He’s quietly devastated, his calm stillness shattered, and he looks like he’s ready to get up and leave her alone, which is what she wanted, but _not like this_. 

She swallows.

“I-” she takes a deep breath, and starts over, “Sorry, Dad,” she whispers. She hooks her chin over her knees. His hand lands gently on her shoulder, and it’s big, and warm, and Kya’s eyes are tearing up all of a sudden, the sourness in her stomach rising through her tight throat, burning in her eyes. She sniffles, and Dad sweeps her close with his long arms, and he smells like the incense the Acolytes have been using for meditation.

When he tilts her chin up to gently wipe the tears from her eyes, she can smell the faintest tinge of ink, and she has the suspicion that his hands are stained with it. Probably from falling asleep on his desk during the council meeting again. He’d stayed up late with them last night— he and Mom had taken her, Bumi, and Tenzin out to the cliff-ledge and they’d watched the stars, and he was always super tired if he didn’t get enough sleep.

“Now, you wanna try telling me what’s wrong?” Kya closes her eyes, and buries her head against Dad’s chest. He runs his hand through her hair. “It’s alright, if you don’t want to tell me, but holding in whatever it is can’t feel very good.”

“Yeah. I guess I can. I’ll try at least.” She wipes the last of the tears from her eyes. Swallows. Her face feels sticky, and she swipes at it with her sleeve. She… doesn’t want to have this conversation with Dad— the sour feeling from early returns, though it has a different twinge, because it’s from nerves and anxiety now, instead of bitter anger and sadness and frustration.

“Um,” she takes a deep breath, trying to figure out how to start. “I-I guess I’m jealous?” Kya’s voice squeaks at the end, and she barely resists breaking down into tears again. Dad doesn’t say anything, just rubs her shoulder. “You just spend a lot more time with Bumi and Tenzin, and you spend so much time working with the _stupid_ council, I just- I just don’t feel like there's really space for me?” Kya fidgets, and she’s _not looking at Dad’s face_ -

“Oh, _Prunes-_ ” 

And she’s being held _so_ tightly, and Dad’s beard is scraping across the top of her head— it’s going to be hard to untangle later, she can feel the stubble on his throat tugging at her hair— his breath is coming in heaving gasps, and he’s almost shaking.

“ _I’m so sorry_ ,” he whispers, and Kya awkwardly wraps her arms around him, after she extracts them from where they are tangled in his robes. She hesitantly pats Dad’s back, and her heart settles out, and the last of the bitter that has hung around her like mist all day—and maybe longer—evaporates.

He leans back to look her in the eye, and like she’d anticipated, his stubble yanks at her hair where it hooked when he’d tucked her head under his chin. Dad reaches up and untangles it before she has the chance, and when she meets his eyes, when he leans back for real, his face is solemn. 

Kya normally doesn’t pay attention to the signs of age on her parent’s faces. They’re young, but she knows that _life hadn’t been kind to them_ (there is a quiet part of her that finishes “until you came along” in Mom's softest voice, the one she only uses while tucking Kya and her brothers in at night, or when reassuring them after they’ve had a nightmare.) But the lines around Dad’s eyes look deeper when she looks at him, and they double, triple, the sadness and regret caught in his eyes.

“I _never_ wanted you to feel that way. And I am so sorry that I didn’t notice sooner.” Some of Kya’s hair had come loose, when he’d extricated her from his beard, and Dad tucks it behind her ear. “How can I fix this?” he asks, and Kya is stuck.

Not once, in all her dejection, had she thought she would get this far. So she’s not sure what to say, what she can do— and she wants to take that crushed look off his face, because she, even in all of her frustration and pain, had never wanted to hurt her Dad.

“Maybe we could do something together? Just the two of us?” he asks, and his voice sounds fragile, like eggshells and glass, like they are rebuilding one of the Air Temples, and each step must be taken carefully to avoid falling.

“Yeah. I’d like that,” she replies, and she hugs Dad as tight as she can. He’s never let her fall before.

“What would you like us to do?” he asks, and she frowns and shrugs, “How about waterbending?” and even though it’s clear that he’s just grasping at straws, she shakes her head violently.  
  


“No! That’s my thing with Mom!” she says, cause that’s time for her and Mom, and she won’t give that up for _anything_ no matter what, and he chuckles.

“Alright, alright. She’s much better at it then I am anyway— let me think of something else that we can do together then, okay?” Kya looks at Dad, and he’s so serious and earnest about this that she lets herself trust that he can make it okay.

“Promise?” she asks, because she wants to be sure.

“Promise,” he says, and squeezes her in a hug so tight she can’t breathe.

And like some kind of magic, like the universe could tell that their conversation was over, the first few drops of rain fell from the sky. One of the droplets stuck to Kya’s eyelash, and she dashes it away with her sleeve— not the one she used earlier, that one has crusty snot and tear-tracks on it. It wouldn’t be very hygienic of her, and well, she’s not _Bumi_.

“Oh _monkey-feathers!_ C’mon kiddo, let's get you inside before it starts pouring on us.” He doesn’t wait for her to get up, or even answer, he just scoops her up in his arms, throws her over his shoulder. She shrieks in surprise and delight, as he leaps down from the roof, using airbending to slow their fall, before sprinting towards the door.

He carries her away, toward where the windows spill candlelight over the encroaching dusk twilight, as the singing-hoppers begin their song, her indignant words trailing behind them.

  
“Dad, that’s _cheating_!”


	2. starting the knots

Things were quiet for the next week or so, and Kya almost thinks that Dad forgot his promise,  _ almost—  _ but he makes more of an effort to include her in everything. Just like he’d promised. 

After seeing Tenzin following her and Mom to waterbending practice— she still hates that Tenzin needs to be the center of _everyone’s attention_ _all the time_ — Dad let her come and practice with him and Tenzin while they were airbending, and helped her figure out some ways to use airbending moves in her waterbending. And he even took the time to show her some of the ways that he combines the moves together! Waterbending was the second element that he ever learned, and it shows—he uses air and water most frequently, and it’s _super cool_ to see him combine the two! 

Dad also tried taking her with him to the council meetings, taking her with him to pick Bumi up from school before heading to the council meeting— except that they were boring, and she and Bumi wound up kicking each other under the table for half the meeting, until she misjudged and kicked Dad instead. Then he’d moved to sit between them, and she, with  _ nothing...better... _ to  _ do _ ... fell asleep. 

He didn’t try to take her with him again.

But despite all these other changes, Dad still hadn’t come up with something for them to do together, hadn’t even mentioned the other part of his promise once since they went inside to escape the rain.

So, here she is, on the roof again— except this time she managed to get to the ocean-view of the house, tricky and risky though it had been— watching the horizon, the sound of crashing waves filling her ears. Debating whether or not it’s worth it to bring Dad’s promise up with him. 

However, just like the first time she'd been out on the roof, the universe makes the decision for her.

"Prunes? You out here?" Oh. He must not be able to see her from this side of the roof. She's not sure that she wants to try getting back across to the other side—it had been hard the first time, so she just shouts to him.

"Hey Dad! I'm on the other side!" she calls, and it echoes off the ocean in front of her, bouncing off the cliffs. Kya winces at the volume, and hopes that Mom didn’t hear her, because Mom is… far less forgiving of her habit of sitting in high places than Dad. 

She doesn't hear anything for a second after that, but then she hears the familiar  _ whoosh  _ of airbending, and Dad flutters down beside her. Like some sort of gangly bald butterfly—and she should  _ definitely  _ save that comparison to use on Tenzin, when he’s being particularly whiney. Except out loud, not just in her head. He'll hate it— his face will probably do that thing where it squishes up like a badgermole that’s smelled something unpleasant.

“That’s cheating, Dad,” she says, and he reaches out and ruffles her hair.

Dad has a small wooden case tucked under his arm, and his smile is particularly bright and blinding. She scoots over next to him, curious.

"I know that it's been about a week since we talked, and I made my promise— I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to wait this long before finding something for us to do together...but I came up with this idea while talking to your uncle, and he convinced me that it would be better to get the right materials," Dad rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. 

“The last time I sat down to do this, I just used some fishing-line, and Sokka was.... unhappy with my decision. He’d other plans in mind for the wire..” he trails off, and Kya thinks that his cheeks are a little pink. Maybe it’s just a trick of the light though, because it’s gone as soon as she notices “—anyway, rather than using what we have around the house, he convinced me to get the ‘proper supplies’, and then took— well, dragged is more appropriate—me out shopping after the council meeting-" Kya giggles. 

Uncle Sokka has an... interesting relationship with shopping (in other words, he's a shopaholic) and the idea of him dragging her dad around the marketplace is funny. It's happened enough times that she has a very clear mental image of what that would look like: complete with Dad windmilling his arms wildly as Uncle Sokka drags him by the front of his robes— or maybe even his medallion, since this was after an  _ official  _ council meeting— and all the people passing by stopping to gawk at the Avatar being manhandled through the streets by his brother-in-law.

Dad laughs too— he knows what kind of image popped into her head—and continues, "He dragged me to the marketplace after the meeting, except none of the shops there had what I needed. So I  _ was  _ going to just go with some fishing line, but Sokka once again convinced me to just wait until the shops had what I needed in stock. And here we are!" He pulls the box out from under his arm, and hands it to her. She opens it.

In nice, neat rows, there are a number of little spools of colored.... thread? Yarn? It's a little too big to be thread, a little too small to be yarn. It felt very anticlimactic.  _ This  _ was what he'd been waiting for? Surely he could have come up with another thing that they could do together. This seems boring, and she  _ hasn't even tried it yet _ — whatever  _ it  _ is, because she doesn’t know that yet either. 

She looks up at Dad, and he looks excited.

Kya  _ can’t  _ tell him that she’s not interested. His eyes will start doing that baby tiger-seal pout that Mom has warned her about. She sucks in a big breath, and prepares to lie through her teeth.

Luckily, it doesn’t look like she has to respond— Dad’s palm hits his forehead with a loud thwack. “Oh! I forgot to tell you what we’re doing! Right,” he takes the box from her, and pulls out two spools of the thread-yarn, warm orange and sunshine yellow, “this is for bracelet-making!”

Kya blinks, and eyes the box, which he passes her again. She picks out a dark ocean blue, and a light smooth peach orange, and waits for Dad to give her the next steps. She’s still dubious about this whole thing, but it can’t hurt to try, can it?

“Alright, first we need to measure out the thread.” So it  _ was  _ thread— that’s one question answered at least. She watches as he stretches the thread out, pinching it tight in one hand and unspooling it up to his shoulder with the other, then hesitantly copies him. Dad takes the box back, and searches through it for a second, before tugging out a pair of shears, and cutting the thread free.

The threads coil in her hands, and Dad shifts over her shoulder, holding his two colors out in front of them. And suddenly, he’s holding a single multicolor strand with a small neat knot at the top. Kya narrows her eyes— how did he do that?

“Um, Dad? I- I didn’t catch that last step,” she says. He gently takes her thread from her, and shows her how he did it, rolling the thread around his fingers. Rather than finishing by pulling it through to make a knot, he passes the thread back to her. When she tries, the knot turns out big and uneven, nothing like the one Dad made.

“You’ve got it!” he says, and grins at her. She looks at the ugly knot dubiously. It doesn’t  _ seem _ like she’s ‘got’ it. 

“Now, I think we should start with a simple staircase pattern.” She watches his actions intently, vowing to herself that she’s not going to need him to demonstrate the knots again. She’s  _ got _ this. Dad holds the knot of the strands in one hand, crossing the string over and around the whole mess, then pulling tight. Then he repeats it. Again, and again, and then— then there, right there, below the starting knot, is the start of a bracelet.

Kya takes a deep breath, and tries to copy what she’d seen Dad do.

It doesn’t go well.

Kya tries. She really does. But with each knot she makes, her bracelet looks uglier and uglier, and by the last few knots, she’s completely given up at trying to make it look good. Bits of the orange poke through on the blue sections, and bits of blue poke through on the orange. The knots themselves are clunky and loose, nothing like the neat and tight knots of Dad’s bracelet.

She wants to pitch the stupid thing over the side of the roof into the ocean.

But she doesn’t— not because she’s not mature enough to resist the urge, but because Dad takes it from her before she gets the chance. “Fantastic job, Prunes!” he says, and she can’t resist rolling her eyes either.

“It looks terrible, Dad,” she says, but he only shakes his head.

“I disagree. It looks much better than  _ my _ first attempt at making a bracelet.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “No, I’m serious. My first attempt at making one of these was  _ awful _ .”

She snorts. “Mom still has the necklace you made for her when you were  _ twelve _ , Dad.” Wait, was that what Dad had been talking about when he said that he’d used fishing line the last time he did this? Nevermind, she’ll ask Mom later— Mom’ll tell her what actually happened. “I doubt you were  _ bad _ , if something you made has lasted this long.”

“That wasn’t the first time I’d ever tried making jewelry, kiddo. The first time I tried, I was nine, and I really wanted to impress one of the girls from the Eastern Air Temple. It… didn’t go as well as I had hoped, but I found out that jewelry making was a  _ great _ way to spend time on long flights!” Kya scrunches up her nose. It’s weird thinking about her parents having crushes on other people, even if it was a long time ago. She looks at her bracelet again, sitting safe in Dad’s hands, where she can’t snatch it up to throw it into the sea with all the force her body possesses, and frowns. Dad follows her gaze, and frowns too.

“Oh! There’s one more part to this tradition that I  _ entirely _ forgot!” he smiles at her, and then, rather than passing her back her bracelet, he hands her his finished bracelet— the ending is tied and everything. “We trade bracelets! Just this first time, but it’s an important step.” Kya knows that he’s making it up— there isn’t really a tradition that they were following… but she slips the yellow and orange bracelet into her pocket, and grins at him instead.

Because, well.

Dad was right to suggest they do this together.

Because it  _ had  _ been kinda fun, despite being frustrating. And she  _ does  _ want to do it again. And, more than anything, Kya is  _ too stubborn _ to let that  _ stupid _ thread beat her. She’s gonna show it who’s boss— if not today, then the next time she and Dad make bracelets together.

So that night, before she goes to bed, she puts Dad’s bracelet into a drawer in her nightstand. And when she closes her eyes and dreams, she dreams of knots and thread.


	3. repeating the patterns

Bracelet making is never intense, unlike waterbending with Mom. It’s always something soft and quiet that Kya does with Dad when the candles are burning low—or, after a few years, in the flickering of the glowing electric lights— between dinner and bedtime, when the singing-hoppers are playing their song.

Bumi and Tenzin are never around when Dad gets out the wooden box of bracelet supplies. Tenzin goes to bed early, because he’s a baby and needs his rest (she can almost hear him screech “ _I’m not a baby! I’m seven-and-a-half!”_ ) and Bumi because… she's not really sure what Bumi _does_ , but she doesn’t see him at all in the period from after dinner until the next morning, when he stumbles in for breakfast. She doesn’t even see him when she gets up for a drink of water at night— and she’s run into every member of her family at least once, on that trip down to the kitchen tap. Most of the time it’s her parents. Most of the time it’s her parents _kissing._

Oogie.

She knows Bumi has snuck out a time or two. She overheard the yelling and scolding that happened the last time he got caught— Mom had been _so mad,_ Dad too, but Mom was super scary when she was mad— but he doesn’t leave _every_ night, and she still rarely sees him. Maybe he’s reading in his room or something. 

Actually— she’s not sure she wants to know what he does.

She _really_ doesn’t want to know what he does.

It’s probably illegal.

Mom is often in the room, when the bracelet-box comes out, but she’s usually reading the newspaper or one of her healing journals on the couch, ostensibly ignoring them. But Kya can always see the little smile hiding in the corners of Mom’s mouth while she and Dad work, so she knows better. 

Kya herself sits on the floor with Dad, leaning against his side, backs to the couch where Mom sits, and they’ll bend their heads close together, and talk about her day. It feels like morning meditation, but the whole family does that, and this is just for her and Dad. It’s peaceful, and Kya notices that some of the worry-lines around Dad’s eyes fade away, at least until they finish with their bracelets for the night.

Her improvement is slow. At first, she doesn’t think she’s ever going to be as good as Dad, and there are a couple of times, after a particularly bad end result, where she convinces herself that she’s never going to make another bracelet again, no matter what. It never lasts long though, and she does improve, inch by painstakingly knotted inch, and soon, she’s creating bracelets with different elaborate patterns, pretty delicate holes, and lots of vibrant colors. Dad bends her a few different charms out of pebbles, and she happily threads them into the jewelry she makes.

Despite all the progress she’s made, there is _one thing_ Kya simply cannot do. No matter how hard she tries— she can’t tie the endings right. They are always too loose, or too lumpy, or don’t attach to the other side right, or a million different things, all of them wrong. It’s really frustrating.

So she stops trying, and just makes Dad tie them for her.

It’s one of the reasons that bracelet-making is limited to those soft evening hours. Dad isn’t working on the endless stacks of paperwork that come home with him from the Council and fill up his office, and can easily be persuaded to tie off whatever Kya was working on, in addition to his own project. He doesn’t make as many bracelets as she does, preferring to knot one into being, undo it, then try again. Kya thinks that he just finds joy in the repetitive motions, rather than the actual bracelet. A different kind of meditation.

She likes wearing the bracelets too. They cling tight to her wrists and ankles, tough and hard to damage. They stay out of her way while bending, and she doesn’t have to worry about them catching on stuff. However, she has limited space and there does come a day when she accumulates too many bracelets. The day when she opens that bedside drawer, and she doesn’t have any more room to tuck her latest creation in, without causing an avalanche.

Kya decides that there’s simply one thing left for her to do—because she can’t just _stop_ making bracelets, she enjoys it and the time she gets to spend with Dad too much. 

So she starts giving some of them to Tenzin.

He’s confused at first. Nearly tries giving them back to her, but she frowns at him until he smiles awkwardly at her, and takes them up to his room. She gives him some of her older bracelets at first— she wants to wear her latest creations first and foremost, so she gives him the ones that she doesn’t like as much, the ones that she last wore _ages_ ago, and don’t really match her skin tone and clothing well.

Then she starts making a few specifically for him— it’s a challenge she didn’t know she needed, trying to make bracelets to his measurements without having him there to measure against, keeping all the threads at _just_ the right length. Tenzin seems to appreciate those more, and she’s caught him wearing one or two around his ankles from time to time.

She’s not the only one who notices Tenzin’s new accessories. 

Bumi does, and then wants some bracelets of his own.

And somehow she’s making bracelets for _both_ her brothers now. 

Tenzin only ever wears his around his ankles, and only one or two at a time. She’s not sure why, but he seems too shy to wear them on his wrists. She also gives most of her old collection to Bumi, because he’ll take whatever bracelets she gives him. He’s not very picky. 

Bumi wears _all_ of his bracelets at the same time. His wrists are covered in them, his ankles too, and Kya’d seen Mom glance at his hands anxiously after he started wearing them— checking to make sure his circulation is still good, and that his hands weren’t turning purple.

Slowly, more and more of Kya’s extended family start getting their own bracelets. Her parents have loads— she’s given a bunch to Mom of course, and Dad still has her very first bracelet. Uncle Sokka has three. Bumi shows up to a council meeting after school, with his wrists _covered_ with the ones she made for him, and when Uncle Sokka comes over for dinner he tells her how much he loves her bracelets. Kya immediately decides to make him some bracelets of his own, and she asks Lin to help her make some metal beads for them. Uncle Sokka gets suspiciously misty-eyed upon being handed the bracelets, which are blue and white, with little metal boomerang beads.

Kya sends a bracelet to Izumi by mail, because she couldn’t wait for the next time her best friend visits to give her the special red, black, and gold bracelet that she made for her pen-pal. Izumi’s return letter had gushed over how much she loved it, and Kya had felt so bubbly— she could have floated up and touched the sky. She feels like that a lot about Izumi.

Her other aunts and uncles get their bracelets with time— Aunt Toph was a particular struggle, since she wanted to make one that Aunt Toph could appreciate. Also because Aunt Toph rarely wears jewelry other than her meteorite band, and Kya wanted to make her something that she would actually wear. The final result was a lacy looking bracelet, made out of fine wire, rather than thread. Aunt Toph had liked it, and Kya’d breathed a sigh of relief.

Kya finally starts school about a year after she first starts making bracelets with Dad. She’s nervous when she scrabbles up onto Appa, wondering what going to a real school will be like, not just being tutored by the Acolytes, and training with Mom. She understands why her parents made her wait so long— it’s not safe for the daughter of the Avatar to go to a public school, at least not until she can properly defend herself.

Bumi yanks her in for a noogie after she settles into her seat, knuckles rubbing across her hair and messing it up, arm around her neck. 

“Relax, Kya! Everything’s gonna be great! You’ll embarrass the hell outta yourself, but it’ll all end up okay.” She shoves him away, and is mildly disappointed when he doesn’t fall over the side of Appa’s saddle.

“I think you’re mistaking me for you, _stupid_ ,” she retorts, then turns her back on him. Bumi is awful at reassurance. Luckily Dad didn’t hear any of their conversation, as he vaults up into the saddle with a cheery whistle, and they take off.

School isn’t nearly as exciting as Kya had thought it was going to be. The day passes quickly, though it feels gross and moody and boring, like a sunless winter day when it’s too cold to go outside, and most of the students in her class seem far more interested in her because she’s the Avatar’s daughter than anything else. There is one exception however.

The pretty Fire Nation girl that sat in front of her in class.

Nysa.

Nysa wasn't weird about her being the Avatar’s daughter, like the rest of her classmates, and she’s nice and sweet, and her voice is so _pretty_ , and she’d sat in front of Kya in class with her long shiny black hair, and cute red headband—and Kya feels her cheeks warming up, and she ducks her head to kick a pebble. 

She’s outside the school, in the front courtyard, waiting for Mom to come pick her up, her classmates huddled in groups around her. Kya stands there alone, in the middle of the front courtyard. There are whispers— she knows they’re wondering if the Avatar Aang is gonna show up, or Master Katara, or another one of her family members. They’ll be happy to gawk, no matter who it is. 

And then Nysa is walking over to her, as if she was summoned by the direction of Kya’s thoughts.

Kya’s cheeks _burn_.

“Hey- um- I like your bracelets,” she says, and she smiles up at Kya—Kya is taller than the rest of her classmates, but it only hits home as she looks down into Nysa’s golden-brown eyes—tucking a loose strand of her long shiny hair behind her ear. Kya’s heart stutters, skips a beat, and does several flips all at once. She swallows. Her throat is dry.

She wants to be Nysa’s friend _so badly_.

“Th-thank you,” Kya replies and wishes that she wasn’t so nervous, and that she knew what to say next. She smiles at the other girl awkwardly, and panics a little when she sees Nysa’s smile falter a little. Before she can say anything—

“Kya!” —Mom shows up.

“Well… bye then,” Nysa mutters, and her cheeks are pink, and she’s turning from Kya, practically away running from her. Kya’s heart drops like a rock, wedging itself firmly in her sandals, and she walks over to Mom, kicking at the ground. The pebble clatters across the flagstones of the courtyard.

She doesn’t say anything to Mom on the way back to the island. It’s not that she blames Mom for how her conversation with Nysa went— at least, she doesn’t _only_ blame Mom. She also blames herself.

When they get home, barely any time passes before Kya finds herself on the roof. She didn’t even bother to try to get over to the ocean-view— she plonks herself flat on the top of the roof and stares at the sky. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t seem to respond to her emotions, and rather than the cloudy grey she wants, all she can see are huge puffy white clouds, frosted with golden sunlight. Kya sighs, and rolls over. 

The blackness beneath her eyelids is much closer to how she’s feeling.

She’s not sure when she fell asleep, but she wakes up to a setting sun, and Dad’s worried face.

“Prunes? You awake?” he asks, and she squints up at him, and pulls a piece of hair out of her mouth. She’s not sure how it got in there. Her mouth tastes like cotton, and her eyes feel puffy and sticky with eye-goop. Gross.

“Mhm,” she hums, as she sits up and stretches, rubbing at her eyes. She nearly topples off the roof before she remembers _where_ she fell asleep—Oops. Dad puts a steadying hand on her shoulder, and drops down next to her, sitting with his legs crossed like he’s going to meditate.

“Did everything go well at school today?” he asks, and his worried face hasn’t gone away yet, despite knowing that she’s awake and okay. She’s confused.

“Um. Yes? Why are you asking?” Dad’s face finally relaxes back to his normal open expression.

“You seemed really down after coming home, and Mom was worried. And you generally don’t come and sit up here unless something’s bothering you.”

And just like that, everything comes crashing back down on Kya.

“Ughh…” she groans, and then face plants back down on the roof. “Nevermind. I’m not fine.” She doesn’t see Dad’s expression return to worry, his eyebrows furrow, and his lips thin, but she doesn’t need to.

“What happened?” He’s not panicking, not quite, but she can tell he’s getting close. She flaps her hand at him, trying to get him to calm down.

“Nothing happened. It’s fine— let’s go inside?” she says, and she swings herself back up into a sitting position. Her embarrassment must be clear on her face, because Dad relaxes, if only a fraction, and stands up. He’ll probably ask her about it again later, but for right now, she’s safe.

Dinner is quiet. Every time Mom tries to ask her about her day at school, she deflects, and she spends more time poking at her food than actually eating it. Bumi is distracted, and he keeps looking out the window— he’s probably going to sneak out later to meet up with some of his friends. Tenzin is eating dutifully and doesn’t seem bothered by the silence at all. 

Tenzin is weird that way.

Dad seems eager to get out the bracelet-box that evening, and Kya is suspicious. He’s probably going to use this as an opportunity to get her to open up about school. She narrows her eyes, and watches him like a hawk, as he settles cross-legged with the box at Mom’s feet. He pulls the bracelet that he’d been working on for the past week or so out, then slides the box across the floor to her.

And Kya gets a marvelous idea.

She’ll make Nysa a bracelet! After all, the other girl had complimented her on them, so she definitely likes them, and it will give her a way to make up for her awkwardness today— it’s perfect! She digs through the spools of thread in the box excitedly, trying to decide what colors she should make her gift.

“So, Prunes— how was your day?” And there it is, Dad’s voice is nonchalant but she can feel his _and_ Mom’s eyes burning into her— she jerks her head up from the box, and she’s pretty sure she’s blushing, her cheeks are much too warm for anything else.

“Good,” she squeaks, and then her eyes are pulled right back to the box full of thread. Maybe she should make the bracelet red, so that it matches Nysa’s headband?

“Did anything happen?” 

“No!” her voice jumps up about three octaves when she answers. Dad’s just asking the same questions Mom asked during dinner, but Kya is distracted enough with picking out the right shade of red to compliment Nysa’s eyes that she’s slipping up and answering him.

“Really?” Mom seems far too amused, and when Kya looks up, her parents are exchanging a _look_ , and she shudders at the layers in it, and goes back to hunting for a nice color to compliment the red she picked out.

And then she looks down at the thread in her hands, and panics. She wants this to be the best bracelet she can make, and her starts are always a little lopsided and lumpy. There’s only one thing she can do.

“Um. Not exactly?” she says weakly, and both her parents are looking at her now, and this might be harder than she thought. She’s not really sure why though. Kya swallows and continues.

“It wasn’t school— school was fine. I just— there is a girl in my class? She sits in front of me,” Kya bites her lip, looks up at her parents, tries to figure out whether she should continue or not. She keeps talking, but she clasps her hands together in front of her and she can’t stop squirming.

“Her name is Nysa, and I really want to be her friend, but I messed up, and made things super awkward, and now I’m worried that she won’t want to talk to me anymore. But she complimented my bracelets so now I want to try to make her one, so that I can talk to her again tomorrow, but I’m afraid if I start it, the knot is gonna come out all lumpy and would you mind helping me please?”

Mom and Dad exchange another loaded glance, and then Mom starts laughing. Dad looks offended, and sniffs disdainfully before turning back to Kya.  
  
“I’d be happy to help you. Pass the thread over?” She hands it to him silently, watching Mom laugh herself silly on the couch. “You know your Mom isn’t laughing at you right, Prunes?” She nods, but her embarrassed blush gives her away. Mom wipes away a few tears, and smiles down at Kya.

“Oh, Kya, I promise I’m not laughing at you. You just reminded me of your father when he was younger, that’s all.” Dad groans, and runs a hand over his face, scrubbing at his beard.

“You are never going to let me live that down, are you?” Kya watches her parents expectantly. Mom laughs again, and shakes her head at Dad.  
  


“You told me you’d rather kiss me than _die,_ sweetheart. And then you tried to play it off as a compliment— Kya, I am so sorry, but I think you inherited your father’s awkwardness.” Dad makes an offended sound, but Kya is too busy parsing Mom’s sentence.

“Wait— are you saying I have a crush on Nysa? I just met her today!” Kya trails off. “Oh my _spirits_ , I have a crush on Nysa!” Dad reaches out and ruffles her hair.

“Let’s not worry about that now,” he hands her the strand that will become her bracelet for Nysa. “You’ve got time. Let’s get this bracelet done first, and worry about tomorrow later.” Kya takes a deep breath, and then smiles at Dad.

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Bracelets tonight, her realization about her feelings for Nysa—and if she’s been miscategorizing her feelings for Nysa, what about _Izumi_ —the rest of the world again tomorrow.

Bracelets and the warmth of her family tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a chore to upload-- ao3 ate the chapter several times and I don't know what I did wrong. Yay.


	4. tying it off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> every bracelet ends

“Hey kiddo, you ready to go yet?”

Kya looks up at Uncle Sokka, who is hovering awkwardly in the door. One foot in her room, one foot in the hallway outside. He’s always a bit weird about how much space to give her and her brothers. It’s probably because he grew up with Mom, who is very particular about her personal space— at least, according to him.

“Almost finished packing. Just a few more things left to go,” she replies, and glances back down at her pack. “Wanna help me get this closed?”

Uncle Sokka nods, and drifts into the room on warrior’s feet, closing the door behind him. She’s going with him when he returns to the South Pole in order to study at her Mom’s school of healing. Because, despite being Mom’s apprentice since she could walk, she still needed a real license to officially practice healing. And she wants this, wants to help people more than anything, so she’s going.

When she’d told her parents about her plans, Dad had chuckled, and told her that she was her mother’s daughter.

After finishing her course at the school, she plans to travel the world. There are so many towns and villages out there that have poor access to healers, and she wants to help them— to set up clinics and heal the sick and wounded. But she also wants to see the world, to see as much as she’s able.

When she’d told her parents that she wouldn’t be coming back to Republic City right away, and would take some time to travel the world, Mom had laughed, and told her she was her father’s daughter. 

Kya had rolled her eyes at the pair of them.

Uncle Sokka comes up beside her, and helps her pull tight the strings that fasten her pack. Kya looks over her room one last time, and her eyes fall on the drawers in her nightstand, the drawers that she could have sworn were empty— but she needs to double-check in case she leaves something important behind.

The first two are empty, as she expected. The third one contains a surprise— a lonely orange and yellow bracelet, and Kya gasps with delight.

“I forgot this was in here!” She pulls it out, and bends down to fasten it around one of her ankles, propping her leg up on the bed and rolling up her pants. 

“Don’t you have enough of those already?” Uncle Sokka says, raising an eyebrow at her, and she shrugs.

“Yeah, but this is the one Dad traded with me for, when we first started making them together.” She rolls her pant leg back down, anklet firmly in place, and fixes her over-skirt. “Of course I’m going to bring it with me. It’s part of the tradition,” she says, and smiles.

Kya wears that bracelet every day she’s gone, every day she doesn’t see her family. It’s like Dad is there with his hand on her shoulder, as she makes it through healing school. It’s like she can feel his proud smile every time she sets a broken bone, every time she’s thanked by a family too poor to afford a city-healer. It’s like she can feel echoes of her family in every place she stops, when she’s too overwhelmed with the beauty of the world to keep going, when she needs to stop and revel in the wonder of being alive. 

She’s wearing it when she hears the news— she first hears it in a small missive sent to the town she’s been staying at, from Bumi. All it says is “Come home quick” and Kya can read between the lines. She knows that Mom has been worrying about Dad’s health for months, she knows that Tenzin has been taking over more and more of his jobs. She knows what this letter really means.

Kya leaves for home that same day. 

The news blasts through the world in her wake, like a wildfire, like a storm with winds that even her family could not weather. 

Avatar Aang is dying.

Kya can’t get home fast enough.

It takes her a week, but it feels like a month, and every day she wakes up and pleads that the universe be kind to her, to her family, that she will not be too late. She makes it, but she doesn’t know how much time they have left. 

She’s not sprinting down the docks toward the house, but she’s not walking either. 

“How is he?” she demands, before the front door has even closed behind her.

“Hello to you too, Kya,” Bumi grumbles from his seat in the corner, face in his hands, and she’s about to scold him, when he looks up at her. His eyes are sunken and his cheeks are hollow, and her big brother has so many more worry lines than the last time she’d seen him. She swallows, and wishes that she’d gotten here sooner.

“Kya-” and then she has an armful of Mom. She can feel her mother shaking. She hugs Mom tight— there’s not much else she can do. When Mom pulls away, Kya pretends that she doesn’t see her wipe away the tears that had escaped.

“It doesn’t look good,” Mom says, and her voice trembles when she says it, and Mom has always been so _strong_ , and now she’s shattering like thin pond-ice and Kya knows its unfair, but she was counting on Mom being stable underfoot, but—Kya is going to have to be the one who holds them together this time, isn’t she?

“It’s okay Mom. We’ve got two healers in the house now, and there is always hope. Things will get better,” she lies, and she holds out her arms for another hug. Over Mom’s shoulder, she meets Tenzin’s eyes, and she can see the terrible truth reflected there.

“Can I see him?” she asks, and she’s barely able to keep her voice steady. Mom nods. Kya takes a deep breath, and walks further into the house. She needs to get something before she sees Dad, and she’s not sure where it went after she left. It doesn’t take her as long to find it as she thought. Not much has changed, even in all the years she’s been gone. There’s nothing left for her to do, but go and see him.

Kya peeks into the room. Dad is propped up against the headboard of the bed, head tilted back, eyes closed, but he’s not sleeping. The curtains are open, and she can see the candles on his bedside table rising and falling with his every breath. The singing-hopper’s song filters through the open windows. Dad has a peaceful smile on his face. 

Kya takes a deep breath, secures the wooden box under her arm, and slips through the doorway.

“Hey Dad,” she says, and when Dad opens his eyes, the delight on his face seeing her there makes her feel even more guilty for not being here sooner. She should have returned as soon as Mom had started getting worried. Maybe things would be better. She returns his smile, but she knows it doesn’t reach her eyes. She’s never been good at pretending.

“ _Prunes_!” he says, and his smile looks the same as it did when she was a little girl. His words are no doubt supposed to be an excited exclamation, but they come out as a wheeze, and she can hear the way his breath is rattling in his lungs now that she’s closer.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, because she’s a healer now, first and foremost, but also because she’s a daughter who doesn’t want to see her Dad in pain.

“Fine, fine,” he waves her question off. “Better now that you’re here. It’s good to see you again, Prunes. Your mother and I missed you.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner Dad,” she says, and she can feel tears welling up in her eyes, so she closes them for a second, trying to get herself back under control. She needs to be strong now, for her family. When she opens them, Dad looks sad—and she nearly closes them again— but she needs to be _strong_.

“Kya— kiddo, you’re right on time.” She can’t think about what that means. She won’t let herself. She sets the box on the side of Dad’s bed, and watches his face light up. He flips open the lid, and extracts the half-finished bracelet that he never finished, and passes the box back over to her. She pulls out a couple colors— she’s not planning on finishing this one, it doesn’t matter what the colors are, and settles into the chair next to his bed.

Dad frowns at her, and pats the bed next to where he’s lying. She gets up wordlessly, and sits on the side of the bed, before giving in and curling up against him, head on his shoulder. They work in silence for a bit, and finally, Dad taps her on the shoulder, and passes her his complete bracelet. She takes it, and stands up.

“I should go check in with Mom— I haven’t unpacked yet.” She’s not running away— she’s not!

After she leaves the room, she sinks to the floor in the hallway and cries.

* * *

The funeral passes in a blur. Kya and Tenzin take over most of the arrangements, while Bumi tries futilely to console Mom. Everything feels dark and grey and when the White Lotus comes to ask their help in finding the next Avatar, Kya refuses. She doesn’t let them in to talk to Mom either, no matter how badly they want to— she’s promised to teach the next Avatar waterbending and that was her promise to Dad— the world doesn’t get to have anything else.

This grief is theirs alone.

They should at least get to keep it, since they couldn’t keep Dad.

Mom can’t stay here any longer— it’s killing her, Kya can see it in her face, every time she turns around. Dad’s ghosts fill the house, and Mom sees them all. So Kya and Uncle Sokka are going to take her to the South Pole. Tenzin has booked a hotel in the city for the next couple months, once she and Mom have gone— he was going to stay with Lin, but well, that’s not going to work anymore. Bumi went back to his post in the United Forces almost immediately after the funeral. Kya can’t blame him.

She did manage to give him Dad’s last bracelet, the night before he left. He’d accepted the gift with dry eyes, and roughly thanked her, before heading back inside. Kya won’t tell him that she could hear him cry that night.

Kya can’t bring herself to touch the bracelet box. She still has it— she could never get rid of it, not before and certainly not now. She hasn’t worn the simple orange and yellow bracelet either— the morning after Dad- the morning _after,_ she’d reached out to tie it around her ankle, before dropping it like she’d been burned. She hasn’t worn it yet, because she’s not sure what will be worse— discovering that it doesn’t feel like Dad’s there with her anymore, or feeling like he _is_.

The decision is made for her, when she’s packing up. Mom comes in beside her, and she couldn’t turn Mom away, not on one of her good days, so Mom is there when she pulls the bracelet out of the drawer she’s been keeping it in. The same one she kept it in when she was a child.

“Oh _,”_ Mom breaths, and Kya looks up at her. There are tears in her eyes, but the good kind, the kind that Kya hasn’t seen since _before._ Mom runs her fingers over the bracelet reverently. The two of them stand together, silent for a moment.

“He kept it, you know. Your bracelet. He started wearing it the day after you left, to go to healing school.” Mom’s eyes are soft and she picks up the bracelet, and turns it over in her hands. “He liked to keep people close, in whatever ways he could,” she whispers, and Kya reaches out, and takes the bracelet. Ties it around her wrist, tightly. It will never come off again.

The night before they leave, Kya sits on the roof. She looks out, at the horizon, at the line where sea and sky blur together, and then looks down at the wooden box in her lap. She takes a deep breath and opens it. Picks out some nice colors. It’s a coincidence that they are blue and orange, the same colors she used the first time she made one of these.

Cuts the threads.

Starts the knots

  
Repeats the patterns.

And then she stops. And sits there in silence, in defeat, in shame and grief and loss and pain.

She never learned how to tie the endings properly. 

And Dad isn’t there next to her, to lean over and help her through it, like he has every time up until now. Like he never will again.

Her hands tremble as she unpicks the knots, slowing down as she goes, until she stops.

Kya pulls her knees to her chest, tears running down her face. The bracelet, forever incomplete, like every single one she’ll try to make from now on, falls from her numb fingers and falls into the sea. She is alone on the roof. There will be no hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

  
Kya _sobs_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, there's not much I can do except offer you a tissue, and the promise that the next thing I write _will_ be happier.
> 
> Scream at me in the comments if you need to, or on tumblr @justoceanmyth  
> I take full responsibility for sadness here.


End file.
